In the meantime, Carole and I drove up to the mountains to visit West Jefferson and Boone to do some shopping. We wanted to buy some fresh cheese and butter from the Ashe County Dairy in downtown West Jefferson. Unfortunately, they are retooling the churns and so they had no butter for sale. That stuff is fantastically good, so we were really disappointed. We made up for it by purchasing some extra cheese varieties.
Then we drove over to Boone to shop on King Street. One of our favorite shops is the Mast General Store. We don't have one of those here in Charlotte, so we have to drive a fair distance to find one. The one on King Street in Boone is a really nice store.
I was hunting for a pair of Smartwool long underwear to replace my old set. They keep me warm when I go backpacking in the winter. But the prices have really gone up on those since the last time I bought a set! It's now almost $100 for bottoms, almost that much for long-sleeve shirt! I don't think we can fit those into the budget. Last time I bought a set the price was a little more than half that much. And it hasn't been that many years ago. Oh, well.
We finished up by taking a short excursion on the Blue Ridge Parkway before heading home. One reason we did this trip is because the weather was so horrible that I decided not to go backpacking in Linville Gorge. As things turned out, I made the right decision. It rained heavily all day in that area.
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| Arriving in downtown West Jefferson in the rain. |
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| Carole makes a purchase in one of the nice crafts stores there. |
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| Ashe County Cheese store! The best! |
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| Part of their wine selection. We didn't buy any wine, but probably should have. |
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| The old man in front of the dairy, across the street from the cheese shop. |
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| Alas, it was rainy and cloudy and dreary even on the Blue Ridge Parkway! |
4 comments:
Yikes, even for here that is expensive for wool thermals. I hope you can find a set at the right price.
My old pair got worn out during a year when I did a lot of cold weather backpacking. So I really do need another pair, and other brands don't keep me anywhere near as warm. But I can't afford to pay that much for long underwear.
Are they available online? If so, you could always subscribe to the site and wait for a sale. With some sites, if you sign in, add what you want to the cart, and then abandon it, you'll get an email in a couple of days offering a discount code. I only discovered that by accident, but it's saved me a few dollars since. :)
Maybe they'll go on sale in the Spring. But I've actually never seen Smartwool products on sale.
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